Ahh Wednesdays…those little speed bumps in the middle of the week. You’ve been working hard for two days, and you’re edging closer to the weekend. The last thing anybody actually wants to do on a Wednesday is actually work, which is why we’re introducing Work Avoidance Wednesdays as a devious time to help you with your wabbing, or work avoidance behaviour.
Today’s game is one that’s been recommended in the comments quite frequently – but we’re doing it now just to finally shut Unavengedavo up. Yes, it’s Mapstd. No, that doesn’t mean your favourite navigation tool has now got genital warts. It is instead a Tower Defence game that relies on Google Maps.
The premise is a simple one; select a location from a range of predefined ones or even specify your own and set it towers around its displayed routes to stop bad things from getting in to your home base. It is basically a variation of just about every single other tower defence game you’ve ever played, only with the bonus of being able to defend your own home, office, or favourite Chinese take-out joint.
The towers you can place vary and increase in range, damage, speed and of course price, with each being upgradeable – should you be able to afford them, of course. Enemies, likewise, have various speeds and health, and you’ll need the right towers with the right upgrades to kill them. Place your towers like a numpty, and you’ll end up with your base being swamped and you being stone dead.
Another added benefit is that it really just looks like Google maps so you could probably get away with playing it at work and pretending you’re checking the route to the client you have to go visit. Neat!
It’s fun, it’s addictive, and there are endless places to defend. In my most recent play through, I chose The Vatican, because the pope needed saving. It’s too easy on easy, but the rest of the levels ramp up the challenge quite considerably – and it’ll certainly help you waste a bit of time while you pretend to actually work.
You can play MapsTD right here.
Last Updated: July 23, 2014
Sith JJ
July 23, 2014 at 11:42
All the best things in life is blocked. 🙁
So much for work avoidance.
KingKappie
July 23, 2014 at 11:56
use Chrome
Sith JJ
July 23, 2014 at 11:58
Still blocked
VampyreSquirrel
July 23, 2014 at 12:00
Use a proxy
Sith JJ
July 23, 2014 at 12:03
I work in finance. My computer knowledge is limited to games, you’ll have to elaborate.
Andreas Victorsson
July 23, 2014 at 14:38
Try hola.org 🙂
It’s a free VPN, unblocks virtually any site.
Kensei Seraph
July 23, 2014 at 11:43
I was looking forward to this.
Now I’ve got something to do other than learn about D&D.
Admiral Chief Saxon
July 23, 2014 at 11:45
http://d3dsacqprgcsqh.cloudfront.net/photo/a8WrKxd_460sa_v1.gif
VampyreSquirrel
July 23, 2014 at 11:46
That’s impressive!
Norm
July 23, 2014 at 12:51
Mind blown.
VampyreSquirrel
July 23, 2014 at 11:47
I seem to be one of the only people around here that doesn’t really enjoy tower defense games…
Sith JJ
July 23, 2014 at 11:48
Yes. You are. 😉
VampyreSquirrel
July 23, 2014 at 11:55
Good to know 🙂
Admiral Chief Saxon
July 23, 2014 at 11:49
I used to like them, but they are all clones of each other, nothing is unique any more.
Sith JJ
July 23, 2014 at 11:51
The Warcraft tower defence mods are still the only ones for me.
Rince&pop
July 23, 2014 at 12:00
Yip! 🙂
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 11:52
Fuuuuu traffic, you’re not passing my points of interest
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 12:02
I’m sure there must be some roads(refresh for pic)
Nintendo Fan
July 23, 2014 at 17:56
That’s pretty cool.